By MARIA SUDEKUM FISHER
The Associated Press
Thursday, October 4, 2007; 9:04 PM

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Eight months pregnant, Bobbie Jo Stinnett engaged in a bloody fight for her life on the afternoon she was strangled and the baby was crudely cut from her womb, according to prosecution testimony Thursday in the federal trial of the woman charged in Stinnett's death.

"You could see swirls in the floor in the blood, showing there was a struggle," said Nodaway County Sheriff Ben Espey, the first law enforcement officer to respond to an emergency call at Stinnett's home.

Lisa Montgomery, 39, of Melvern, Kan., is accused of strangling Stinnett on Dec. 16, 2004, and using a kitchen knife to cut the baby from her womb. Montgomery has pleaded not guilty.

The baby, Victoria Jo Stinnett, survived and is now almost 3 years old.

Police tracked down Montgomery and the baby the next day in Melvern through e-mails Montgomery had sent Stinnett about buying a rat terrier, which Stinnett and her husband raised at their Skidmore home in northwest Missouri.

Thursday marked the start of Montgomery's trial in federal court, where prosecutors have said they would seek the death penalty if she is convicted. The trial is expected to take at least three weeks.

In his opening, federal prosecutor Matt J. Whitworth said the government will call witnesses who will testify that Montgomery was not insane at the time of the killing, as well as a physician who will testify that Stinnett was "likely still alive when the baby was being cut from her womb."

"This defendant spent a great deal of time planning this crime," Whitworth said as he detailed Montgomery's computer searches on Web sites about how to perform cesarean sections and home births.

Defense attorney Frederick Duchardt Jr. told the jury Thursday the defense would not deny Montgomery's involvement in Stinnett's death. But the defense intended to show Montgomery suffered from mental illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by years of abuse that included being raped by a stepfather from when she was about 12 until she was 16.

Duchardt also told the jury in his opening statements that Montgomery has a condition called pseudocyesis, in which a woman falsely believes she is pregnant and can exhibit some of the outward signs of pregnancy.

It was those mental illnesses, compounded by a brewing custody battle with her former husband over their four children, that pushed Montgomery to killing Stinnett, Duchardt said.

On cross-examination by the defense, Espey acknowledged that his original report on the case said Stinnett was found lying "in a pool of blood" and did not mention patterns in the blood that would have suggested a long fight between Stinnett and Montgomery.

O'Connor also pointed out that two emergency personnel responded to the scene and said they could have contributed to the blood being splashed over the floor.

"It appeared to be a struggle," O'Connor said. "But in fact the struggle was the emergency workers trying to save Bobbie Jo's life."

Testimony also included several graphic photos of Stinnett's wounds and the bloody floors in the room where she was found by her mother, Becky Harper, who also gave brief emotional testimony about finding her daughter.

"There was blood everywhere. She was laying on the floor," Harper said, fighting tears. "It looked like she exploded all over the place."

Whitworth also gave examples of Montgomery telling friends and family that she was pregnant, even though she was unable to carry children after undergoing a tubal ligation in 1990 after the birth of her fourth child.

A bloody rope used to strangle Stinnett and a knife used to remove the baby are among more than 100 pieces of physical evidence prosecutors were expected to present at trial.

Stinnett's husband, Zeb, who was at work when his wife was killed, is raising the couple's daughter in northwest Missouri. He sat quietly through the day's testimony and held back tears during his own testimony as he told about finding out his wife was dead and his baby had been kidnapped.

"I broke down," he said after composing himself. "I was concerned. I think I was just in shock." He said he did not return to the couple's home in Skidmore after that evening until April 2005.

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Associated Press writer Brian Charlton contributed to this report.